Environmental journalists produce heat, not light

Commentary: Plus, naturally, Ifill was a good debate moderator

By

JonFriedman

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- As that great pundit Kermit the Frog once famously mused, it's not easy being green.

Thomas Kostigen, a MarketWatch columnist and author of the new book "You Are Here," might add a corollary: It's also not easy being a green journalist -- and trying to make sense of the environmental beat.

Environmental concerns and the accompanying "green" movement are putting a lot of heat on journalists, who are anxious to show the public that they're in tune with the zeitgeist in America.

But many of them don't really understand the nuances of the subject -- and therefore have a hard time communicating ideas and insights to their readers and viewers. They're failing to shed much light on the environmental discussion.

Beyond sticking to a few catch-phrases and earnestly spouting a do-good philosophy gleaned from Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," the media aren't doing much to try to explain the green phenomenon.

Lost in the abstract

"I think most journalists get hung up on the jargon," Kostigen said. "They talk about global warming and carbon emissions as opposed to climate change and pollution. In other words, they get lost in the abstract and the science."

I asked Kostigen if the media's ignorance was based on a failure to grasp the facts or a political bias.

"Well, terms like 'green' and 'global warming' have become pejorative from a conservative standpoint because they are associated with political positions, largely liberal positions," he said. "But this again is the media's fault for combining politics with science."

Kostigen frets that television journalists may not cover environmental stories well because "it's an intellectual subject -- and that doesn't make for good TV. You can't see carbon dioxide in the air, so that's that. The Web gets caught up preaching to people. Web sites and blogs want you to become an all-sum environmentalist. The print media, meanwhile, [are] hung up on green tips: eco-friendly product ideas."

Some pundits suggest there are two main problems in communicating environmental stories to the public. On one hand, some journalists are so knowledgeable about science that they can't condense their thoughts to tell a simple story. On the other hand, some don't grasp basic scientific ideas and fail to sound credible in their reports.

In a piece titled "Science and Journalism Fail to Connect," Dan Fagin, who heads the science-journalism program at New York University, wrote: "How can we expect Americans to know anything beyond what they happen to remember from science class? Journalists certainly don't tell them." Read his full article.

It's high time that journalists did.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you want to read stories or watch TV news segments about the green movement?

MEDIA WEB STORY OF THE WEEK: "Gwen Ifill was a true journalist: fair" by James Rainey (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3). Read the story.

Forget about the text and let's examine the headline. While it was no doubt intended to be a compliment, you could also interpret it as a patronizing insult -- a classic back-handed compliment -- to PBS' Gwen Ifill, who moderated the Oct. 2 debate between vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

Ifill is, after all, an accomplished print and broadcast journalist. What did Rainey or anyone else expect of her?

Yes, she'll soon have a book about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the shelves and appears to have a financial interest in the election's outcome. But I didn't expect Ifill to shill for Obama, Biden or anyone else when she moderated the debate.

It's getting to a point in American journalism when the media themselves play "gotcha" on one another as a pastime. Why was there such a furor surrounding Ifill? Journalists write books all the time and have rooting interests that are usually fairly apparent.

Critics should have waited for the debate to take place before throwing stones at a pro like Ifill. As any sensible observer could have determined, they would have been very disappointed. Ifill did a commendable job -- because she is a pro. I wasn't surprised.

READERS RESPONDto my piece about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is seeking to change the term-limits rule so he can run for a third term:

"The people voted to enact term limits. Do you want Bush for another year? Same argument. Your story is an excuse for terminating term limits in NYC -- the Bloomberg excuse will open up the door for more corruption in NYC. NYC will survive without Bloomberg at this time. Keeping the present mayor because there is no one else in your opinion is a lame excuse -- this same excuse can be argued by every politician who seeks re-election. Term limits work. Don't you agree?"

-- Jon Slosser

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